He took me to Paris. He kept me in a villa, a gilded cage with guards and no phones. He was a "devoted brother" taking care of his "mentally fragile" sister.

I tried to escape once by jumping from the second floor, but they caught me. Now the windows had bars.

He didn't touch me again. He only watched me, hugged me, kissed me. I lived like a puppet—eating, sleeping, waiting for a death that wouldn't come.

On my birthday, he took me to a high-end restaurant.

"Happy Birthday," he said. I didn't respond. I refused to remember the boy who brought me a messy cake when he was nine.

Suddenly, Ernuo appeared. He looked haggard. "Qiao Yu, come with me. Marry me. I know the truth now... I came to find you."

I looked at Ningyi. A flicker of something—sadness? loneliness?—passed through his eyes.

"Yes," I told Ernuo.

I married Ernuo. A few years later, we divorced. I lived a quiet life on the alimony. Ningyi never bothered me again. My father disowned me. I thought the demon had finally grown up and let me go.

Five years later, while visiting a cemetery with my former mother-in-law, I saw a headstone.

In Memory of Beloved Son, Shen Ningyi.

He had died the very day I left Paris with Ernuo. A car accident.

I went back to the old house. My father was a broken old man. Wu Ma gave me a box Ningyi had left behind. Inside were diaries and a blood-stained photo from my eleventh birthday—the day he fell with the cake. We were both smiling.

The diaries revealed the truth. He had loved his "sister" since he was a boy. That love turned into a twisted, agonizing obsession when he found out the truth about our parents. He raped me because he wanted to destroy me for what my mother did to his, but also because he was jealous of every other man who looked at me.

He regretted it every day. He thought three years in France would cure him, but it only made him crave me more. He brought me to Paris to keep me, but seeing me wither away broke his heart. When Ernuo came for me, he realized he had to let me go if he wanted me to live.

On the day I left, he had been driving like a madman, trying to catch one last glimpse of my plane—or perhaps trying to reach me one last time—when he crashed.

He never told me he loved me. He never told me how much those early years meant to him.

His final wish was for his headstone to bear a message I had missed until that moment:

"Sister, I’m sorry. I love you..."

[THE END]

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